Dream of Mirrors
by GuardianSaiyoko
Summary: The result of heavy metal, incredible caffeine intake in short periods of time, and a stressful week. What did Vincent dream about, anyway? Guess the pairing. No, really. Guess.


He tried to bring his knees up to his chest, to use the leverage to move the lid.

You know that isn't going to work, Vincent. The voice was patient, resigned, almost kindly. Vincent knew better than that.

_Shut _up, _Chaos_. He kept trying, let his knees collapse back down, pressed his right arm against the lid and shoved. Nothing happened. Nothing budged.

Nothing ever did.

You could try your claw, Chaos suggested. Vincent snarled at him mentally.

_**Have you ever felt the future is the past, but you don't know how...?  
A reflected dream of a captured time, is it really now, is it really happening?**_

The claw was useless and Chaos knew it. It was only a dead weight on his arm. Vincent felt his arm, weakened from the years of inactivity, slacken and fall back to his chest.

He wasn't sure if he was awake or dreaming anymore. Maybe he was crazy, locked in a white cell somewhere in Midgar, and none of this even existed. Maybe he'd never even met a man named Hojo.

Maybe all the time he'd spent under Hojo's knife never really happened.

But his hand curled against the fabric of his clothing, brushed against the golden claw that had replaced his hand, and he realised it didn't matter. Whether or not this was real, whether he was awake or dreaming, he was still trapped.

_**Don't know why I feel this way, have I dreamt this time, this place?  
Something vivid comes again into my mind**_

Giving up again, Vincent? A pause. It must have been years. I don't believe we're ever going to escape...****

Dammit, even his demons were getting depressed.

Hey, Vincent? Go to sleep. Chaos spoke gently, but with force behind his words.

_What? **No!** _Sleeping was the last thing he wanted to do. He fought Chaos mentally, but it was only a matter of time before the demon dragged him down into nightmares again.

_**And I think I've seen your face, seen this room, been in this place  
Something vivid comes again into my mind**_

His dreams weren't in color. For countless years he had opened his eyes to nothing but black, and now even his dreams were in black and white.

Straps across his arms, his legs, his chest. No air, no light, pain and relentless dripping of blood. A weight around his neck, a reinforced golden collar that would never again come off. He could not remove it, only hide it.

_**All my hopes and expectations, looking for an explanation  
Have I found my destination? I just can't take no more **_

"Why? Gods, why...?" But there were no gods on Gaia anymore. The only ones left were trapped within red crystals of Mako...

And Hojo had forced some of those crystals on him, the materia a permanent part of the collar fastened so tightly to his neck. It wasn't that the collar was screwed on well; to remove it would be to remove the outside if his own throat. Hojo had replaced his skin with it. The summons were tied to it, linked to and fed by his blood through the complicated system Hojo had built.

His arm. His arm containing another complicated system of materia, of Revive and Restore, keeping him alive. Well, that and the gods in his bloodstream. They were not keen on having their host body dead.

_**The dream is true, the dream is true  
The dream is true, the dream is true**_

"Lucrecia...Lu...cre...cia..." Of course there was no answer. Even if she had been nearby...she would not be near him now...

"Oh, Vincent, it isn't her name I want to hear from you," came the damning murmur. White came into his line of sight, white and the black lines of a cruel face. A knife came slashing down his chest, Hojo laying it open as in a dissection lab. Vincent gasped, blood bubbling in his throat.

"Hojo...!"

He was yanked from that dream abruptly into another. Almost grateful, because he did not want to relive Hojo's...alterations..., Vincent found himself staring at a shock of spiky hair. It was gray to him, but that meant nothing. His vision was in black and white, now, the hair could have been bright yellow for all he knew.

This was not that unusual...Chaos liked to torment him with dreams of escape...

_**Think I've heard your voice before, think I've said these words before  
Something makes me feel I just might lose my mind  
Am I still inside my dream? is this a new reality  
Something makes me feel that I have lost my mind**_

Chaos was starting to lack creativity, though he got points for approximating the aging process. He'd dreamt this man before, seen his hometown in flame and years in a hell of Hojo's making, like and unlike his own.

But unlike him, this one had escaped.

And the girl beside him, the one bouncing up and down, she was familiar as well. Hidden in a closet (some clichés are clichés because they're true) as her mother was raped and killed by the SOLDIER who had promised help, watched as her town fell to ShinRa, she'd been so young when her world was shattered, young still when her remaining family shunned her and she left to travel and to seek out a fate unattached to the home that had let her down. Left her past in a matter like and unlike his own.

But unlike him, she had found a place to belong.

And the last one, the firecat guardian, another who bore Hojo's scars. One who searched unceasing for a way to protect his loved ones, willing to die for a love like and unlike his own. Love of a family and a hometown, but love all the same.

But unlike him, this one had a home and a love to return to.

**_All my hopes and expectations, looking for an explanation  
Coming to the realization that I can't see for sure_**

He stood, he spoke to him, and finally he left with them. This new dream was absolutely torturous in detail. Every wound in battle faithfully reproduced, every sensation artfully reconstructed, torture at false sunlight, false air.  
**_  
I only dream in black and white, I only dream cause I'm alive  
I only dream in black and white, to save me from myself_**

If only it had been in color. Color would have meant he was awake. He thought, anyway; Hojo could have altered his eyes easily.

_**I only dream in black and white, I only dream cause I'm alive  
I only dream in black and white, please save me from myself**_

The first night in a tent was strange. Red, the cat, had excused himself to travel with the barmaid and the man with the gun-arm. That left him to share with the confused blonde and the young ninja. Even in a dream, he was happy that they were both all right, out of the grasp of Hojo and the stifling traditions of Wutai. They were too young and innocent to suffer more, though they did suffer more through his dream. But that first night he hadn't known about the Reunion or that she was a thief. That would all come later, and anyway it wouldn't matter in the end. ****

**_The dream is true, the dream is true  
The dream is true, the dream is true_**

He stayed awake a long time that first night, or maybe he stayed asleep a long time, he wasn't sure. And anyway, he might well be crazy, so it didn't matter really.

The girl slept in between him and the blonde, one arm thrown over them each. She thought his claw was 'cool.' She managed to take up an impressive amount of room, but he supposed neither of them was objecting overmuch to it.

He thought it was strange that no one objected to her sharing a tent with two men. Red said later that it had become a matter of convenience; propriety becomes unimportant when the fight is for your life and your world.

In the end, you simply took love, happiness, brightness where you found it. Wherever, whenever, you took whatever you found and you gave back whatever you could and you _never- ever _regretted any of it, never took any of it for granted. ****

**_I get up put on the light, dreading the oncoming night  
Scared to fall asleep and dream the dream again_**

When he fell asleep that night, or maybe when he woke up that morning, he was in his coffin again.

_**Nothing that I contemplate, nothing that I can compare  
To letting loose the demons deep inside my head**_

Worse, in this nightmare that quickly became a hunt for his lover's son, the demons gained footing in his soul. They began to manifest during fights, to take over his body, and he dreamed in fear of them harming Cloud or Yuffie. The others he did not worry so much about, but Cloud was torn by conflict from within and Yuffie was so young; they were both such inviting targets. He experienced worry and even fear when Yuffie was in danger from Don Corneo and again, worse, when Cloud came out of the Lifestream a gibbering wreck. And then they healed, and the relief he felt was profound and stronger than anything he had thought himself capable of feeling.

_**Dread to think what might be stirring, that my dream is reoccurring  
Got to keep away from drifting, saving me from myself**_

He thought it was strange that parts of the dream began repeating, mundane details of battles and healing. But everything was in black-and-white still, and he woke each night in a two-meter prison and wondered what color Cloud's hair was.****

**_I only dream in black and white, I only dream cause I'm alive  
I only dream in black and white, to save me from myself  
I only dream in black and white, I only dream cause I'm alive  
I only dream in black and white, to save me from myself_**

And then Sephiroth was defeated, and the ghost of Lucrecia was gone, and even then Chaos mocked him whenever he woke. Even in the endless dream he found he had nowhere to go, nowhere to return but the coffin in the basement in the frozen town. It seemed time had a tendency to stop in Nibelheim.

And he would have returned to that coffin, even dreaming, but Cloud and Yuffie stopped him, asked him to come with them. Where, they didn't know, but Cloud's home had been destroyed and Yuffie's wanted her only for materia she did not want to give. Not since the town had rejected her a second time, not since she herself had helped to bring down Sephiroth with the same materia.

And Vincent agreed.

And Vincent began to suspect.****

**_Lost in a dream of mirrors, lost in a paradox  
Lost and time is spinning, lost a nightmare I retrace_**

Sometimes, if he was quick enough, he saw splashes of color out of the corner of his eye. The coffin no longer seemed the same each night, as if it was losing definition.

He watched as Yuffie danced on a table in a bar and sang with ridiculous abandon. She hauled Cloud up with her, he was laughing, forgetting for the moment the blurred lines between himself and Zack.

Yuffie got them kicked out of that bar, but there were others.

_**Lost a hell that I revisit, lost another time and place  
Lost a parallel existence, lost a nightmare I retrace**_

Cloud was always so confused, lost in memories that weren't his to begin with. The three of them had no place in this world, after it had forgotten its heroes. And the world forgot quickly.

But as he watched his companions, laughing as they wrestled each other to the ground in the cool night air, laughing as they dragged him down with them beneath the starlight, he wondered if it was so bad to be forgotten. They were forgotten and Cloud and Yuffie laughed and exulted and brought him with them as they explored the world as if they were seeing everything in it for the first time. Yuffie coaxed them to spend hours watching the ocean from the beach, watched the sunrise to the sunset and all the little things that came between, the life that teemed in the sand and water if only you stopped to watch. And even the things he had once found tedious and annoying, like sand and salt in his hair and clothing, were wonderful now. And by the end of that day, the crash of waves on a beach would forever have the ability to leave him awestruck and spellbound.

He hadn't known Yuffie could be so patient, or that Cloud was capable of such childish happiness in something so simple. But then, they were both still children, in so many ways. With Yuffie's personality and Cloud's flaws, they always would be. Sometimes it felt a little like babysitting, watching over these two who would never really be adults, but he would never have imagined complaining. Not when they had given him such a terrible wonderful unending dream.****

**_I only dream in black and white, I only dream cause I'm alive  
I only dream in black and white, to save me from myself_**

And it reminded him of a time so long ago the memories of it seemed dusty, the time when he'd been in school and the way whenever the teacher said form groups there was always the one group left over made up of whoever didn't have an established set of friends. And this was another group of those left over, and just like way back then it worked together even better than the preplanned groups, and it wasn't at all like the long-ago fights and war when decisions were made daily that were 'more bullets or more water' or 'there's four of us and the guy in the copter said three, do we leave him or hijack the copter.' No, this had the quality of relentless childhood, this dream was awash in summer sunlight and sleds in winter.

They spent a long, long time going nowhere at all. It had been Yuffie's idea to try and walk across the planet, to take a boat whenever they ran out of land, her seasickness be damned, and it resulted in weeks on the grasslands blurring into each other. More weeks in the desert, where tumbling to the ground in a tangle of bodies hurt more, ground sand into skin, but made everything feel more alive. Time in the cool shade of the forest. Time in the warmth of the beach. Time lost in the gentle rise and fall of the waves. Time unending, and they needed nothing at all, they were completely self-sufficient.

He lay on his back in the grass, his eyes shut and basking in the warmth of the sun on his face and quietly content in the way he can feel Cloud's body beside him, not quite touching but the warmth is still there, and the way he can hear Yuffie singing softly as she props herself on her elbows and her shadow falling soft over him and over Cloud, all of them together. And they haven't seen the others in a long time, but that doesn't matter because the others might not approve, and the life they have together was hard enough to build without disapproval. Sometimes they see Tifa still, and he knows something in her is saddened at the sight of Yuffie and Cloud and him together, but she always invites them in and gives them food anyway because she is happy that he is happy. And sometimes they see Red, and Red holds no disapproval at all, because Red was the one who said so long ago that you take what you you can find.

And once she built a hang-glider, she and Cloud, and surprised him with it on the day that wasn't really his birthday but the day they found him and the day they celebrated, and they all three went up on the cliff that night, closed their eyes and leapt, and flew. And he was flying, and they were flying alongside him, and he didn't think he'd ever forget the feeling of the air rushing past and the wind prying tears from his wide eyes and Cloud hanging onto his claw so that he wouldn't fall and Yuffie's wild laughter. And it didn't seem real, and yet it seemed more real than anything that had ever occurred before the gunshot and the coffin.

_**I only dream in black and white, I only dream cause I'm alive  
I only dream in black and white, to save me from myself**_

Yuffie said once laughingly that common-law marriage was seven years and wondered aloud how that applied to them. It had been ten years but there were one too many, and Vincent said uneasily that he could leave, and Yuffie smacked him and he never ever suggested such a thing again; and he said they had no home, they weren't living together by the proper definition, and Cloud laughed and said sure there were. Home was the plains and the desert and the sea and the sky. Home was everywhere and nowhere at all, and that was perfect, that was just how it should be. Sometimes Cloud still mixed himself with Zack, confused himself, and sometimes Yuffie stared unseeing at the mountains and murmured in her first language, and eventually he was careless and they saw the collar and found the claw was removable to bare a stump of an arm, but it was all okay because they didn't mind.

And he realized one day that he knew, without knowing how he knew, that Cloud's hair was blonde. Blonde shock against the green grass, golden blaze in the dying desert sun, he knew. And Yuffie's black hair had blue highlights in the dark, her eyes really were gray, and Cloud's eyes glowed blue.****

**_I only dream in black and white, I only dream cause I'm alive  
I only dream in black and white, to save me from myself_**

And then came the day that Yuffie intentionally drew out Chaos, called him and challenged him and angered him, and he swiped at her in rage and cast an attack Vincent didn't know because Vincent never knew what Chaos did with his body. And Yuffie was frozen at the age of twenty-eight, and she laughed at Chaos' idea of punishment and said that she would never have to leave them now. It was only then that Vincent realized neither he nor Cloud had aged in twelve years. Now Yuffie would not either, and they remained, twenty-one twenty-seven twenty-eight but so much older, really.

And he stopped suspecting.

And he knew.

_**I only dream in black and white, I only dream cause I'm alive  
I only dream in black and white, to save me from myself**_

And for the first time in over forty years, the world bloomed into color, and when he shut his eyes the darkness of the coffin never came, because Chaos could no longer remember it. ****

**_The dream is true, the dream is true  
The dream is true, the dream is true_**

_Chaos..._

_When did you switch my dream for reality?..._


End file.
